Biobased Production of Succinic Acid and Its Derivatives Using Metabolically Engineered Microorganisms

Abstract

As concerns over climate crisis and environmental issues continue to mount, there is an urgent need to transition towards a more sustainable society. One key aspect of this transition is establishing systems for production of industrially important chemicals from fossil feedstocks to renewable biomass. Succinic acid (SA) is recognized as one of the most important platform chemicals due to its potential in numerous industrial applications. Consequently, extensive efforts have been made to develop metabolically engineered microbial strains capable of producing SA with high efficiency. In this paper, the current status of microbial SA production is reviewed with an accompanying table summarizing the titer, yield, and productivity achieved by various metabolically engineered microorganisms. In addition, this paper discusses downstream processes for the purification of biobased SA and showcases microbial production of several SA derivatives of interest. Finally, future perspectives on the successful industrialization of biobased SA are discussed.